Feds: West fertilizer blast was preventable
DALLAS -- The federal agency that investigates chemical accidents on Tuesday said the deadly blast at West Fertilizer Co. was preventable and called on regulators to take additional steps to reduce the risk of another catastrophe.
But a year after the tragedy, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board still does not know what caused the fire at the facility, which stored ammonium nitrate, a highly combustible fertilizer. The explosion killed 15 people, injured hundreds and damaged more than 150 houses, schools and other buildings in West, some 80 miles south of Dallas.
Rafael Moure-Eraso, the Chemical Safety Board's chairman, said "no other single chemical has caused more widespread harm" in preventable accidents than ammonium nitrate.
State and federal regulators, he said, should restrict the amount of ammonium nitrate stored at any one time, require safer blends of the chemical to make it less explosive and order facilities to use fireproof, concrete structures to hold the fertilizer.
"Accidents like West can be prevented," Moure-Eraso said. "Regulations need to be updated and new ones put in place."
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